Various forms of storage systems are used today. These forms include direct attached storage (DAS) network attached storage (NAS) systems, storage area networks (SANs), and others. Network storage systems are commonly used for a variety of purposes, such as providing multiple clients with access to shared data, backing up data and others.
A storage system typically includes at least one computing system executing a storage operating system for storing and retrieving data on behalf of one or more client computing systems (“clients”). The storage operating system stores and manages shared data containers in a set of mass storage devices.
Clients or users are provided management tools to interface with storage systems. It is desirable to provide tools to users where a user can define a service level capability for storing and protecting data and the management tool can automatically configure the service level capability and resources for providing the storage service.